^____________THE HUNDRED DAYS___________79

Great changes swept over American life during the latter
months of 1932 and still more during the first half of 1933
after the steady pressure of three depression years and subtle
alterations in public opinion finally buckled the barriers of
resistance. A reshuffling of group values unmistakably oc-
curred. The primacy of Big Business, the glamour of ma-
terial success, the sanctity of the gold standard, the nobility
of prohibition and the sufficiency of self-help had all been
challenged sharply and in large measure scrapped.

A new spirit was in the air, a promise of leadership which
millions found thrilling, a minority viewed with alarm. It
was no coincidence that 1933 saw the reprinting of Edward
Bellamy's Utopian classic, Looking Backward, while in that
year the first book by Franklin D. Roosevelt as president bore
the title Looking Forward. "We are on our way/' he told
the nation, and after long incertitude no words could have
been more welcome. In this honeymoon of the New Deal
it was a true love match between the president and the peo-
ple, possibly a little irrational on both sides with its trust
in mutual infallibility—but love, after all, transcends logic.

Further decisions of moment were pending. Some were
frank experiments, within which certain contradictions
seemed to be at war—the short-term economics of scarcity
against long-range economics of abundance, higher wages
and farm prices without much rise in the cost of living, sus-
pension of the antitrust laws cheek by jowl with new solici-
tude for the little business man. The philosophy behind these
actions was more consistent than the policies themselves, and
upon his intuition of that trend the average citizen was con-
tent to pillow his head. Points of strength and weakness in
the New Deal, successes and failures, would grow clearer as
time passed, along with the fact that Roosevelt's talent for
brilliant improvisation tended to exceed his grasp of steady
objectives. Probably the fairest judgment which could be
reached, while the dust of controversy still hung thick in the